Fira .... Cute but very touristy

Fira Travel Blog

We drove into Fira from Villa Manos. It was a fun drive..... the businesses were lined on the streets and I loved looking at the little restaurants especially. I wanted to try every one.... We found the public parking lot in Fira and tried to park where we wouldn't get bumped. We noticed quite a few of the cars had really thick dust and looked like they had been there for weeks. So it must be a pretty safe lot. We walked up the incline into town.... we found the museum pretty quickly .... We walked into the museum then found the ticket booth was outside and around the building from the door. That was different.

bell towers ~ Fira

While David bought tickets I saw a bead store across the street. I ran over to buy beads for Cate but they were closed. I would have to get them later.....

The museum was called the Museum of Prehistoric Thira. It was very well put together although it was quite small. It was arranged in a square and we turned to our right to properly see the displays and the timeline. The first diplays were fossels and maps of Santorini. The next was the Neolithic and bronze age displays. The rest of the displays were the from the city of Akortira. One piece that was really unusual was a wooden table, long vanished: The shape and design were frozen the the lava.

This pot has a great shape and design... unglazed.

They poured plaster into it much like they did at Pompeii. The resulting mold was surprisingly intricate. I loved that not all of the desplays were behind glass. They had large (really large) pots. They also had a bath tub and the frescos displays "open air". My favorite frescos were the blue monkeys. I thought the monkey paintings were very clever and realistic in their poses. Some of the painting style reminded us of the paintings on Crete. The excavation site of Akrotiri was unique as it was abandoned before it was covered in ash. Most of the valuable items were taken as the people left... The museum consists of mainly pottery and frescos.

pitcher .. wave and leaf design

.. There is one gold ibex that was recovered.

The one thing I wanted to see was the fresco of the man holding the blue and yellow fish. I asked at the museum exit if it was there. The girl said it was there but it was downstairs and was not viewed by visitors. I asked if there was anyway to pay a special fee to see it but she said it was strictly off limits. She said there was a reproduction at another place but not at this museum. I was really sorry to not see it.. When we left the museum we saw an art display and the fish picture was there.. I felt tacky but I took a picture of it. We didn't see the reproduction on this trip but hopefully will on the next trip. We will spend more time wandering and less time "doing".

circle design... look at the intricate top

. .. that is more our style. We are always lucky when we wander.

We went also to the state run Archeological Museum. When we walked in the employees were talking and seemed annoyed at the interuption of selling tickets. I compounded it by wanting to buy a tablet.... They didn't seem very happy with us at all. We found the displays were not well marked. Some did not have dates or where the items were found. I really enjoyed the pots and the patterns. Some were circles, swastikas, birds, lions, flowers, wave and other borders. I couldn't believe how much detail went into the pots. They were some of the best I have ever seen. But it was very hard to photograph...

The largest problem was the rooms had many windows and there were major reflections on all of the glass display cases.

bird with worm..

It was very difficult to get good shots. I have quite a few unusable photos that have me clearly reflected instead of the displays. Plus the glare canceled out many of the pictures or my camera would focus on the reflection instead of the museum item and pictures are out of focus.. One section of the museum it was forbidden to take photographs. But the end of the "no photograph" area was not marked.. I asked a rather annoyed man at what point I could photograph... We didn't spend more than 45 minutes in the museum. The actual items in the museum were good quality.

We walked up the walkway and looked around a bit before we went to the car to go to a black sand beach. We followed the map and eventually found the black sand beach.

fruit?....

The sand was actually just plain grey. Nothing like the black sand beaches in Hawaii. Ben and David went into the water. I wasn't keen on going in. They said they could see fish in the water next to them... I finally waded out and was surprised at how colorful the fish were.

Ben talked me into going up to the car to change into my swimming suit. I reluctantly walked up to the car and got my suit out of the trunk. I got into the front seat to change... It was kind of the edge of a parking area but there were houses nearby too. It was awkward changing and I got the giggles thinking about how stupid I must look wiggling around trying to put it on without being too obvious. About this time I looked back at the beach and saw the fisherman I had passed on my way had taken off his pants and was laying naked on the sand.

Akrotiri church

That really made me laugh at myself then.... what was I worried about? At least I wasn't going to show my bottom.........I finally got the damned suit on and stuffed my other clothes into the trunk. I walked back to where Ben and David were (the fisherman was gone so apparently he gave up on tanning his white parts....) I waded in up to my waist and watched the fish below the surface... Ben ran and got his camera and took a few pictures of David and me...(hopefully he'll never post them because I was in a bathing suit :o ....) After about 1/2 hour we walked back to the car to drive to the red sand beach.

The red sand beach was past a little church.... I stopped and took pictures of the church.

pots

.... It had an interesting "hay" looking cross on the roof. The white church was in front of a gigantic red volcanic rock mountain. We walked across the parking lot and walked up the trail. We reached the top of the ridge and looked down at a small beach ..... wwayyyy down at the beach. I immediatlely said I wasn't that interested in going and I would stay at the top. David also opted not to go down the steep trail.... Ben didn't want to miss going to the beach and went on down. I took pictures from the top.... Ben was dwafed by an immense rock.... (yeah, it was a red rock).... We took pictures of the sunset and Ben finally came up and we drove back to the motel. We decided to go into town for dinner.

flowers above a taverna

It took us quite a while to find an open restaurant in town.... Someone finally directed us to one. We walked in and were greeted by a number of kittens.... As soon as we sat down one of the kittens started playing with the end of my scarf. Another jumped into my lap and started purring. David was laughing.... We ordered wine and dinner .... I thought the dinner would be a disaster with the kittens but another couple came in and the kittens moved to their table. We loved the menu and ordered a great meal. We sat out on the outer deck and looked down towards the town. The meal was really above average. We drove home happy.